Sneezeville News Update!

“Don’t confuse us with facts, we’ve already made up our minds”

Just a reminder to my readers that Sneezeville is a fictional town. The people and events are fictional. For that matter I am fictional. Fictional means pretend, make believe, made up, not real but as long as my readers and advertisers are real, it isn’t a problem. Just keep those checks and fan mail coming and you will have Gutz in Sneezeville.

The town of Sneezeville is in an uproar. Last week Cletus Stumpwater won the pig rasslin contest at the fair. With the exception of Mayor Slump, he is now the richest man in town. He brought home the $100 prize and the pig, not to mention a large portion of pig smell. He built a pigpen in his yard and intends to open a bacon factory. The town is divided on the issue. It appears that some of the people can smell it all over town, others can’t smell it at all and some others are planning on smelling it later. Frankly, I think Cletus smells worse than the pen but I’m not involved.

There are pigpens and pigs all over town, Otis Sneezleweed, grandson of Sneezeville founder says, “My Daddy had a pigpen, my grand-daddy had a pigpen and if it was good enough for them then it is good enough for me.”. The problem with Cletus’ pig is that it is not a local pig. It comes from nawth of the Mason Dixon line. If it were a good ol’ local pig or even a Virginia pig nobody would com- plain. But the fact is, it is a Yankee pig. People are marching around Cletus’ house shouting “Just say no out of state pigs.” They have signs on their buggies that say, “Sneezeville, America’s pigpen.”

Cletus says he doesn’t understand the problem. “Pigs is pigs” and “little Blossom has a home here no matter what they do.” He stated flatly. “At least until she is bacon sized” Cletus has been accused of taking money under the table for bringing the pig to town. “That is an absolute lie” he said, “They put that hundred dollars right in my hand in front of everybody, not even a table in sight.”

It was beginning to look like this issue might destroy Sneezeville. It was brother against brother, father against son, life-long friendships were being destroyed. Mayor Slump threatened, ”either that pig goes or I go.” At this announcement, several citizens defected to the pro-pig contingent. “I could really learn to like that pig,” said one citizen who declined to be named. It was decided that the only rational way to resolve the issue was to determine if “out of town” pigs were actually worse than local pigs.

The town council had a pig smelling session, and voted unanimously that out of state pigs smell worse than local pigs. The matter was resolved when Cletus traded Blossom for one of his brother Clem’s pigs. Now everybody in town is happy. The demonstrations are over. The opposition says the town smells better. Cleet is particularly happy because he had traded with Clem last week and now he has Blossom back. I’d call that a win-win situation.

A little local history here. A city feller moved to Sneezeville to write a book on country life. Cletus sold him a piglet for $20.00 to eat his table scraps. When the city feller was ready to leave he asked Cletus to buy back his pig. Cletus said, Well, you bought him for $20.00, and you’ve used him for a year- so I quess he ought to be worth $5.00 by now. That city slicker was smart. He checked and found out pigs live two years so he held out for $10.00 for a half used pig. The city feller was happy. Just another case of a fast talking city slicker taking advantage of a poor dumb country boy.